Page 2 | To loose my cool with the SENCO?

juststopitt · 07/07/2026 13:00

Go over her head, speak (calmly!) to the Head making clear the urgency of this. If the head is ineffective then go to the governors.

Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 12:08

CheekyBlueKoala · 07/07/2026 11:13

Have you ever posted in the Facebook Group T1 children - Rights at School? The lady that runs the group is able to offer excellent advice on support for children with T1, as well as those with additional needs.

Yes posted in there, she was the one who suggested an ECHP to cover his diabetes support. The diabetes team have written a really good letter backing the ECHP with all the support he needs, it’s literally the lack of SEN plan letting me down.

OP posts:

CheekyBlueKoala · 07/07/2026 11:13

Have you ever posted in the Facebook Group T1 children - Rights at School? The lady that runs the group is able to offer excellent advice on support for children with T1, as well as those with additional needs.

Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:59

x2boys · 07/07/2026 09:56

This is really hard
I would probably aak for this thread to be to be moved to special needs
As you are just going to get a lot of unhelpful replies
I would also contact your local sendias for support and arrange a meeeting wuth them and the SENCO although thats highly likely to be spetember now.

Show quote history

Sendiass are livid with the senco saying it’s highly unprofessional and have urged me to put in a complaint also. They also said they shouldn’t of talked me out of the SAR request.

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Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:57

Octavia64 · 07/07/2026 09:50

Just put the SAR in.

presumably there are past Sen plans? Or do you need specifically one for this year?

Needs to be this year. They want a recent one to see if things have improved which they haven’t he requires even more support. Going to put the complaint in with the headteacher and SAR alongside, they made me feel bad about the SAR request saying it was a lot of paperwork and would be a lot of work… I should of gone with my gut instinct and said I still wanted it in hindsight.

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x2boys · 07/07/2026 09:56

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:08

Wondering if I can have some other SEN parents advice please.

DS10 is a fairly complex case, he has type one diabetes & high functioning autism along with a few other things.
It can really hinder him in school with the combination. Most of the time he refuses to do work unless it’s maths (maths he’s top 5 % in the country) as he thinks literally.
English he’s okay at SPAG and has good reading skills but when it comes to writing and answering questions they said he just cannot do it due to not being able to think abstractly.He sits and zones out this happens in other subjects too. He also requires adult help for his diabetes in terms of injections & keeping a eye on his numbers.

He’s had sen plans all through school and has a lot of adjustments. Now going into year 6 his teacher has said he needs an echp as he’s not going to manage in a mainstream senior (also backed up by a autism specialist & diabetes team who don’t think he will be able to self inject by year 7 which is required.)

So I put in for an echp and it’s come back while they agree he has significant SEN and medical needs the SENCO failed to put in sen plans so they couldn’t agree.
Spoke to the SENCO who said she hasn’t bothered to do one this year even though he has a lot of adjustments etc! She said she would get it done back in June.
2 weeks later still wasn’t done so I requested a SAR which they managed to speak me out of doing stupidly on the promise they would do it as a matter of urgency as I need to do mediation.
Well you guessed it the SENCO is now ignoring my emails regarding the evidence I need.

What do I do now? i’m really upset.

This is really hard
I would probably aak for this thread to be to be moved to special needs
As you are just going to get a lot of unhelpful replies
I would also contact your local sendias for support and arrange a meeeting wuth them and the SENCO although thats highly likely to be spetember now.

Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:54

Givemeausernamepls · 07/07/2026 09:30

I would move this to the SEN boards. You are going to get lots of opinions off people who have no idea how frustrating it is to try and get support for your child and just how much energy is needed to manage the school and prepare for meetings so you don't just sit and moan about the things that they said they would do and didn't. That said, you really need SENCO on side.

In my experience, primary schools want to do as little as possible. I'd imagine its mainly based on lack of resource so having to prioritise children who are violent and disruptive. I would imagine that zoning out is not considered disruptive and that he is still working at the expected level.

I have a ND and diagnosed dyslexic child, she struggled to get her words and ideas onto paper. She had a brilliant teacher who was able to teach her lots of strategies to help, can you focus on this in the short term.

I would go down the formal complaint route if they have missed another deadline and it sounds like you already have the paperwork done. It may make them support better going forward.

And yes she said she had to priporituse the violent children, however they are in a completely separate sen class. Theres 3 of them so no reason why she cannot meet the needs of other sen children its only a school of 90 kids with around 15 having sen so its not like she’s overloaded! She’s even admitted my son has very high needs, i imagine as when he gets the echp it wont benefit the primary school money wise so she simply doesn’t care.

OP posts:

Octavia64 · 07/07/2026 09:50

Just put the SAR in.

presumably there are past Sen plans? Or do you need specifically one for this year?

Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:48

I’ll ask to move to sen boards thank you. It’s actually very disruptive his teachers get really frustrated with it as it takes him a week to just write two sentences! They said if they could grade his writing/comprehension ability it would be a F so fail. They give him a scribe and alternative recording methods and get the same result. We had a brilliant senco beforehand but sadly left and now left with someone whose unfortunately not very good at their job. I will go ahead with a formal complaint to the headteacher then and see where we go from there.

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Givemeausernamepls · 07/07/2026 09:30

I would move this to the SEN boards. You are going to get lots of opinions off people who have no idea how frustrating it is to try and get support for your child and just how much energy is needed to manage the school and prepare for meetings so you don't just sit and moan about the things that they said they would do and didn't. That said, you really need SENCO on side.

In my experience, primary schools want to do as little as possible. I'd imagine its mainly based on lack of resource so having to prioritise children who are violent and disruptive. I would imagine that zoning out is not considered disruptive and that he is still working at the expected level.

I have a ND and diagnosed dyslexic child, she struggled to get her words and ideas onto paper. She had a brilliant teacher who was able to teach her lots of strategies to help, can you focus on this in the short term.

I would go down the formal complaint route if they have missed another deadline and it sounds like you already have the paperwork done. It may make them support better going forward.

Original poster

Larrythecatforpm · 07/07/2026 09:21

CaptainMyCaptain · 07/07/2026 09:16

YABU to lose your cool. The SENCO is probably snowed under with other children's needs as well and probably has her own class too (they did at my school). It shouldn't be a case of who shouts loudest gets seen first. Blame successive governments for underfunding schools.

I don’t mean loose my cool, but she’s been promising to do it for months now and still hasn’t. I have been made aware by other parents that she’s not sorted out sen plans etc for their children too. I get being snowed under but she’s promised mutiple times to do it and hasn’t. We even sat in a meeting while she wrote it all down in April and it literally just needs to be finalised! I don’t know wether to sit in reception and ask for it to be done, I am on a very small time limit and if it’s not done in time my son won’t have a school to go to in year 7 and she knows how serious this is. I applied for the echp myself to help her, all she has to do is hand over the evidence! Assuming you do not know how serious this is, to think I have all the time in the world to wait around while she types it up it literally takes twenty minutes the support is there already it just needs to be typed onto paper!

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ALovelyPinkUnicorn · 07/07/2026 09:19

Well you don’t “lose your cool” as that suggests you plan to be agressive and abusive to a member of school staff.

CaptainMyCaptain · 07/07/2026 09:16

YABU to lose your cool. The SENCO is probably snowed under with other children's needs as well and probably has her own class too (they did at my school). It shouldn't be a case of who shouts loudest gets seen first. Blame successive governments for underfunding schools.